[ By Zhang Liyan | Tang Ruohan ]

【#Tech24H】A team from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences announced that they have successfully, for the first time in the world, artificially created a “ball  lightning-like” phenomenon highly similar to its natural counterpart, solving a century-old natural mystery. Ball lightning, commonly known as “rolling thunder”, is one of nature’s most mysterious electromagnetic phenomena. Using the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (the “Xihe” laser facility), the team successfully excited and captured a spherical luminescent object that closely resembles natural ball lightning in shape, state, and luminous characteristics, confirming that ball lightning is essentially an “electromagnetic soliton”. This electromagnetic soliton has a diameter of about 100 micrometers and a lifetime of about 100 nanoseconds, with a spectrum covering a broad range from ultraviolet to infrared. Through physical scaling, it corresponds to natural ball lightning that is several tens of centimeters in diameter and lasts several seconds.